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 1_Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia
_ _ _ Third Itinerary |
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The entrance to the neighborhood of San Lorenzo
from the Central Train Station is perhaps the most popular and, for
this reason, the most fascinating. Rich in history and little signs of
everyday life of times gone by, the entrance is located in Piazza
dell'Unita' d'Italia, as soon as you turn your back on the Station and
the Dominican Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. This was once a spiazzo
or a piece of uncultivated land, that the Florentine Council of the
Republic assigned to the Dominican Pietro da Verona on December 20,
1244 to accommodate the Florentines that flocked to hear his popular
sermons. The last great crowd met here in 1279 when the piazza hosted
one of the first, vain, attempts to arrive at a Guelph-Ghibelline
peace. Right after this negotiation the new Dominican basilica (right
behind us) with its great piazza in front of the church replaced this
area. It was transformed into a commercial area named "Piazza Vecchia
di Santa Maria Novella". Various markets were held here, first
vegetables, and then straw, hay and finally coal was sold here.
This piazza has remained the same for centuries, dominated by the
beautiful Palazzo Cerretani (restored in 1937, when Michelucci's new
station was being built, today it is the Railway's headquarters). You
can also see a fabulous Renaissance tabernacle depicting a proud
Madonnna and Child by Andrea della Robbia
(on the corner of Sant'Antonino). You cannot avoid the horrible obelisk
in the center of the piazza, erected in 1882. Despite its esthetic
aspect, the ceremony in which the obelisque was raised was when the
piazza got its new name, Piazza all'Unita' Italiana.
Palazzo Cerretani deserves some consideration on our part, it came to
the family in the seventeen hundreds after it had belonged to the
Lucalberti, the widow of the famous mercenary Malatesta Baglioni (in
1555), the Federighis and finally the Della Scarpa family before
Niccolo' di Francesco dei Cerretani (they got their name because they
came from Cerreto) bought it in 1625. Until then the Cerretani had
lived in the houses between Via Zannetti and Via de' Conti, facing the
street that now carries their name. It was probably Niccolo's son, the
senator Giovanni Cerretani that had the building enlarged and
redecorated in the seventeenth century, even though he preferred to
maintain the sixteenth century character of the building. He even kept
the Renaissance loggia in the middle of the facade. On the opposite
side of the piazza, Palazzo Carrega Bertolini was built on antique
houses that had belonged to the Cenni, Verrazzano and Vernaci families.
When it became the Baglioni Hotel, its famous tearoom was the meeting
place for elite Florentine society until after the Second World War.
Another interesting note before we leave this piazza is that Napoleon
erected a guillotine or the widow here, but, fortunately, in Florence
it found no victims. |
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The
Popular Entrance
